Kalahari Bushmen: The End Of A Myth - 48-min documentary

Nov 1996
A searching film which separates today's Bushmen from their mythical status.

A small community of South Africa's original Bushmen huddle in the red sand outside their huts. Every morning they dress up in loincloths for bus loads of tourists. By midday, they are back in their T-shirts. Unemployment is the biggest problem. Unlike Namibian Bushmen, South Africa's Bushmen do not have enough land to survive by their old hunter-gatherer ways. Lacking money and self-esteem, they turn to alcohol. Only one Bushman still works for the Parks' Board. All the rest have been fired or quit. Apartheid has done nothing for them. Many were used by the army to hunt down the then banned ANC. Today they still live in old army camps. In one tent, frenzied Bushmen dance a disease out of a sick person's body. While many whites work for Bushmen's rights, others are angry at the thought of land or compensation being given to 'lazy impostors'. Even the Bushmen themselves are exasperated at their outdated Image: "We dislike people calling us Bushmen, like objects that they can laugh at." Is our notion of 'the noble savage' simply extinct?

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Kalahari
• Bushmen
• unemployment
• Namibian
• rights
• Apartheid
• Journeyman
• Pictures
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman
• journeyman pictures

[bogdancomm]

the true reason the khoi-san people are vanishing is: OUR CIVILIZATION ! we are killing them... with our money concept and so called civilized life style! these people survived in Africa's harsh conditions for almost 150,000 years! and nothing happened... then the "civilized" people arrived and everything turned wrong. damn... can't you see folks? our civilization is like a deadly plague!

[XsavagistX]

"basically they dont like work at all" sums up why they win and civilization loses. and will lose.

[theroadupward]

Take that Calvanist work ethic and stick it where the desert sun don't shine. They survived for tens of thousands of years, but westerners arrogantly assume they are just failed versions of us. Do like we do in the USA, work your arse off and end up consuming 2/3 of all psychotropic drugs in the world.

[quisquefaber88]

its the same old story, give us your land and adapt to our way of living, or scramb the heck out of the land you once lived in that i now bullied yourself out of. and because you have no place to go where you can be yourselves.. you are forced to eat my feces and like it. compliments of the house.

[quisquefaber88]

@3877michael dude i think anyone should be granted at least a chance, the possibility to decide how to live, what lifestyle he prefers. i think that now, there is not ONE square centimeter of land where someone can decide to try life differently than the usa lifestyle.

[packthesack]

"A civilized man without a flint is less than a savage:

Robinson Crusoe.

[Aspanaut]

So what ?? should all 6 billion of us just slap on animal-skin underwear,fashion the nearest tree branch into a weapon,and go live like the animals we decend from?Should we pitty these people for not keeping pace with evolution?Or should we feel resentment toward them for branching out into the populations that would eventually become us; The Evil MODERN HUMANS that seek to destroy all that is before them!?!?! {:O

[3877michael]

@myastroflight Yeah it is supposed to suck. Got to feel it to heal it. To much thinking and not enough feeling. Heartlessness is the biggest issue and problem on this planet. Meditation and religion do not guarantee compassion. More often heartlessness is left intact. Thank goodness you felt something. Anger and outrage is better than numb indifference.

[myastroflight]

@3877michael Just how many vids have you pasted this same piece of shit to?

[3877michael]

What is the big deal? We gave them plastic stuff, alcohol, tobacco and AID's What more could they want? We give and give and all we get is resentment. What else could they want? Sovereignty or land ? That is not gonna happen. Some people are never satisfied. Goodness we let them have goats!

[bogdancomm]

@visualkei72 well... you're right: the civilization is the destiny of the humankind... but I'm afraid when we say: CIVILIZATION... we don't understand it the same way...

[DriftwoodAndCorpses]

living off the land is tradition and survival--but civilization is just round the corner. for the comments, that's why there are cigarettes, etc...they also clearly said that the garments are there for traditional moments or photos. not everything is cut and dry, black and white, etc...freedom is what's at stake, even in minimalist terms. what's wrong with that? i reckon it's something like 'misery [civilization] needs company [Bushmen--so called]...lets choose for them and play father'.